Dog Heart by Breyten Breytenbach A Memoir

Breyten Breytenbach's meditations are informed by a profound intelligence and wit and an overriding sense of the past. He is captivated by memories of the land that is no more, of the child he must have been. Breytenbach begins Dog Heart with his own beginning in Bonnievale, South Africa, and looks at his homeland through the prism of memory to uncover a new landscape. We read of the ouvolk, the moon and stars and trees and shrubs and rocks that are really petrified shamans, subterranean travelers, death dancers who change themselves into rocks to become invisible to those who invade the land. Then over time they forget to change back. Through searching honesty and dreamlike lyricism, Breytenbach raises the memoir to a new level.

BREYTEN BREYTENBACH was born in Bonnievale, South Africa, and currently divides his time between France, Spain, Senegal, and New York City. He teaches in the Creative Writing Department at New York University.

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Publishers Weekly

Throughout, the writing is artful and some passages soar: ""People are trapped in the sad slanting light washing over the country like ants in treacle."" Although not a full-scale view of the New South Africa, this installment in Breytenbach's continuing portrait of self and land offers a multitu...